Heavenly's Reviews

Dust To Dust

Lovely! Actually, Heavenly!!!

With so few good new power metal releases this year, I thought that I would be stuck listening to Lost Horizon and only Lost Horizon (whose both albums are absolutely incredible, by the way) every day until my birthday when Therion will release its 2 new albums - they could not have chosen a better date to release them.

Then by sheer chance I heard that Heavenly - whose first album I heard, remained unimpressed (it was like an over-sweetened cheesecake version of Helloween/Gamma Ray and I don't like cheesecake) and more or less forgot about them - released their THIRD album. Well, if a band lives long enough to release 3 albums, that in itself is a success. So I got the album...

BUY THIS ALBUM NOW!!!

I have to be honest with myself first. This album is not an absolute masterpiece such as Lost Horizon's "A Flame To The Ground Beneath", so, just by itself, it doesn't deserve 5 stars (though no less than 4-and-a-half would do it justice), but I gave it 5 because it is 1> so much better than their 1st album, and so now I have to get their second album to see what I missed, and 2> because it is such a nice and refreshing suprise in a sea of mediocrity, hatred and evilness.

There are 3 or 4 songs on this album that can be skipped without much feeling of guilt. After all, it is a 70+ minute album - and with the likes of Nocturnal Rites (they are not bad but their newest album "New World Messiah" is) releasing their 40 minute works almost every year, even the length of the album has to be appreciated.

One also has to take into account that on a 70+ minute album not all songs can be perfect. But I can easily put together at least 50 minutes worth of music from this album which I could listen to anytime, anywhere, in any mood.

But one also has to remember that on this album (except maybe for the first track which is not really a song but a vampire's speech) there are no songs which are really bad - as in bad that you should skip them because they are unlistenable. Which is also a success for a 70+ minute album.

Another aspect of this album that I appreciate is the fact that the band has kept the richness of their first album intact - on their first album I loved the richness of the songs - they have more vocal melodies and rhythm changes in every song than pretty much any other non-progressive band I can think of, but the cheesiness kept me away from it - so in this album they have kept the same richness but they got rid of the cheesiness.

Let me point out some highlights. Songs 2-4 are great, especially song #4 - Victory (Creature of the Night). I don't understand people who blame Sonata Arctica for using pop-like vocal melodies in some of their songs. This song has a pop-like chorus and it's lovely - it touches me in the heart and it makes me shiver.

Songs 8 and 9 are also great. Especially track 9 (Miracle) - it really is a 9 minute long miracle. The chorus reminds me a bit of Edguy's chorus in Theater of Salvation, except that the topic here is love and there salvation and I am not a big fan of metal songs about salvation.

Songs 11-13 are also lovely, especially the ending track - it can easily be compared in emotion and athmosphere to Dragonland's "A Thousand Points Of Light" from the album "Holy War" - which is an (up to now) unparalleled song about a man doing what a man is not supposed to be able to do, ascending into the sky and bringing justice upon those who live there.

The whole album still reminds me very much of some songs on Gamma Ray's album "Rebellion in Dreamland", except that these songs are richer and less predictable.

Musicianship: Great guitar playing (some of the solos can make me cry), amazing drumming, very noticeable and well-executed bass performance (especially during gallop parts), great and very fun to listen to keyboards (maybe because I play keyboards too so I pay special attention to them), and of course amazing lead and backing vocals.

This band can be looked at as a mixture of Gamma Ray, Helloween, and Edguy, but with much richer songs and with a lot more rhythm changes, and (especially on this album) much less predictability and cheese.

Overall, this is an amazing piece of music which shows that metal is far from being dead, and that metal actually is a worthy way of life.

Buy this album, you will not regret it.

Buy this album on Amazon at $14.99